1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatus and methods for indicating the quality of received signals. The present invention is particularly useful in conjunction with mobile telephones or cell-phones.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional mobile phone typically displays the channel signal strength information, such as by presenting a vertical bar or horizontal bar. The amount so displayed is based upon the current channel Received Signal Strength (RSSI). There is a problem with such displays in that the RSSI does not reflect anything about the channel quality for the user.
Even when the RSSI is indicated as very good, the user can experience degenerated call quality because of interference, etc., despite an acceptable quantity of RSSI. Further, with no indication that the signal quality has deteriorated or is unacceptable, the user might erroneously conclude that there is a problem with the phone unit instead of a loss of acceptable received signal quality.